Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet • Hacker News Board

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#411

Post by BTCOG » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 5:58 PM UTC

coldpie wrote: post #97

hacknat wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think Ethereum will overtake Bitcoin eventually in usage. In some ways it already has. Ethereum's transaction fees are set to drop like a rock over the next few years, and so many useful things are built on it already.

What usage? Isn't bitcoin used only for speculation, and a bit of crime on the side? I'm not aware of any usage for bitcoin that isn't purely commodity trading (with zero actual underlying value) or scams.

Bitcoin is used daily for paying real people money across the internet. You are in fact speculating on it's uses.

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#412

Post by standardUser » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 5:58 PM UTC

gzu wrote: post #48

What about 0 percent interest rates? How much environmentally damaging malinvestment across the globe has been caused by risk free money? Think of how carbon intensive the concrete, steel, manufacturing, power generation industry are. Not to mention the population boom beyond our earths carrying capacity needed to perpetuate our ever increasing monetary scheme requiring never ending growth where deflation can never e…

Sometimes "whataboutism" is subtle. Other times, people simply say "What about...".

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#413

Post by nelsontodd » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 5:58 PM UTC

junippor wrote: post #350

nelsontodd wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough. But for every bill gates we can find a mark cuban, michael saylor etc who are extremely excited about bitcoin. So I still think it is uninteresting.

Moving the goal posts. First you said "Just because Bill Gates is a billionaire, doesn't mean he knows what he's talking about" Now that you've learned that most likely he DOES know what he's talking about, you changed your argument to "Other people think other things, so it's uninteresting" (What? WE're not talking about random people here.) Lets just say it: you already arrived at the conclusion you want, now you'r…

I conceded the point that he hasn't looked into it with 'fair enough' lol. Regardless, informed is relative. I don't think Bill Gates knows more on bitcoin than I do. His status as an authority figure is uninteresting, because we can find many authority figures that disagree with him.

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#414

Post by delaaxe » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

jk7tarYZAQNpTQa wrote: post #325

adolph wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the cause of many of humanity's biggest problems is humans As opposed to elephants or sea urchins? How can humans not be the cause humanity's biggest problems? The Buddha taught there are three kinds of dukkha [usually translated as “suffering”]. The first kind is physical and mental pain from the inevitable stresses of life like old age, sickness, and death. The second is the distress we feel as a result of imperm…

> How can humans not be the cause humanity's biggest problems? That's a pretty good indicator of a civilization's state. For an advanced one, the answer to your question would be "it's nowhere near the top worries". All human-made horrors (war, climate change, etc.) would be left far behind. If we were as smart as we think we are, our biggest problems would be rogue asteroids, solar storms and aggressive aliens, not…

By default, nature is an aggressive and competitive environment.

It's only after we barricaded ourselves in towers protected by walls that we started to find predatory animals cute (and even made children's toys in their image)

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#415

Post by BTCOG » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

flatline wrote: post #124

coldpie wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What usage? Isn't bitcoin used only for speculation, and a bit of crime on the side? I'm not aware of any usage for bitcoin that isn't purely commodity trading (with zero actual underlying value) or scams.

Ethereum has had a few other interesting, non-black-market uses over the years. DeFi, game assets, NFTs, etc. And the technology has actually evolved. Bitcoin is just...still bitcoin.

These are all bubble scams.

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#416

Post by toomuchredbull » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 6:00 PM UTC

notum wrote: post #386

mrmanner wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but also the other way around: A less advanced civilization would have much more trouble with elephants, sea urchins, bacteria, and other natural factors than with humans.

Damn those sea urchins!

Stepping on a sea urchin is no beuno. I remember one time snorkelling and I was being pulled by a rip tide and I was like no big deal, I can just slowly head a different direction until I started being pulled barely past sea urchins on corals and then I was freaked out. They are dastardly.

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#417

Post by gt565k » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 6:00 PM UTC

Heh, Microsoft's cloud and data centers are also bad for the planet, but here we are.

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#418

Post by 49para » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 6:01 PM UTC

kitcar wrote: post #11

Bitcoin is an almost perfect exploitation of humanities fatal flaws (greed, unwillingness to acknowledge externalities - i.e. selfishness). It's that old SF-trope that the cause of many of humanity's biggest problems is humans.

Fiat currencies are an almost perfect exploitation of humanities fatal flaws (greed, unwillingness to acknowledge externalities - i.e. selfishness).

Fractional reserve lending are an almost perfect exploitation of humanities fatal flaws (greed, unwillingness to acknowledge externalities - i.e. selfishness).

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#419

Post by yrral » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 6:01 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #319

bingbong70 wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Even arguments about renewable energy being used to mine BTC are moot, because they don't consider the opportunity cost of what could be done with all that energy instead. If I launch a BTC miner into space and use a star to power it, will you worry about what else could have been done with that energy? The more remote the energy source, the higher the cost to deliver it to a centralized grid, meaning it will probab…

> If I launch a BTC miner into space and use a star to power it, will you worry about what else could have been done with that energy? Well first of all you used a ton of energy to get it to space. But yes, I would definitely worry about it. There are a ton of other CPU intense jobs you could do with a rig like that that would be more beneficial to humanity. Medical research for example. It doesn't matter where you d…

Why is using computing power for bitcoin not beneficial to humanity?

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#420

Post by silentsea90 » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 6:02 PM UTC

What's bad for the planet is how decades of individual work output in money can be confiscated (by printing and inflation, not taxation) by the Government under the pretense of doing good. What's bizarre is that the Government is not affected by market forces while the rest of us plebs are forced to be efficient lest we lose to competition. Note: when I say confiscation, I mean money printing and not taxes (which will exist in a crypto world). Money printing disproportionately hurts the poor who hold currency whereas the rich stay rich as their wealth is held in assets.

Separate money and state and you get closer to a state where the Government has to streamline its operations. We will see behavior truly good for the planet then, because the Government won't be able to spend trillions on military interventionism and research, and will have to focus inwards on streamlining its own self. Increasing taxes will cause a mass exodus leaving the Governments in a bad shape. Bitcoin can't be confiscated. Holders will just migrate to a country that is good with BTC being used as a store of value to guard against money printing.

This is a revolution against nation states. BTC Energy consumption is negligible compared to the incumbents but nobody talks of those so here we are.

Edit: I am surprised at the number of downvotes and would encourage you to comment so I can address your thoughts on the matter. Meta comment - also surprised that the HN crowd is so divided on the matter.